Field
The present invention relates to apparatus and a medical wound dressing for irrigating, stressing and/or cleansing wounds, and a method of treating wounds using such apparatus for irrigating, stressing and/or cleansing wounds.
It relates in particular to such an apparatus, wound dressing and method that can be easily applied to a wide variety of, but in particular chronic, wounds, to cleanse them of materials that are deleterious to wound healing, whilst retaining materials that are beneficial in some therapeutic aspect, in particular to wound healing.
Background
Before the present invention, aspirating and/or irrigating wounds and apparatus therefor were known, and tended to be used to remove wound exudate during wound therapy. In known forms of such wound therapy, the offtake from the wound, especially when in a highly exuding state, is voided to waste, e.g. to a collection bag.
Materials deleterious to wound healing are removed in this way.
However, materials that are beneficial in promoting wound healing, such as growth factors, naturally occurring anti-inflammatories, and other physiologically active components of the exudate from a wound are lost to the site where they can be potentially of most benefit, i.e. the wound bed, when such therapy is applied.
It thus would be desirable to provide a system of therapy which                a) can remove materials deleterious to wound healing from wound exudate, whilst retaining materials that are beneficial in promoting wound healing in contact with the wound bed, and/or        b) which allows fluids containing active amounts of materials that are beneficial in promoting wound healing to pass into and/or through the wound in contact with the wound bed.        
Dialysis is a known method of treating bodily fluids such as blood ex vivo, to cleanse them of materials that are deleterious to the body systemically.
Retaining materials that are beneficial in some therapeutic aspect in the treated fluid is not an object of dialysis.
This method of treating bodily fluids is also a systemic therapy, since the treated fluid is returned to within the body.
This is in contrast to a topical therapy in which the treated fluid is recycled outside the body, e.g. to a wound.
Dialysis also requires large amounts either of bodily fluids, such as blood, or of dialysate, and consequently the relevant devices tend not to be portable.
Even when in a highly exuding state, chronic wounds produce relatively little fluid to be treated and relatively little materials that are beneficial in some therapeutic aspect to be retained in the wound and/or its environment.